


Reprise

by Hunting In The East Lands (easternCriminal)



Series: Reprise Verse [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Reincarnation fic, kind of, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 05:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/Hunting%20In%20The%20East%20Lands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usnavi muses in the mid morning, find a piece of himself, and loses it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> More of this verse *shrugs* takes place before the actual events of In The Heights

“Usnavi, I have known you for as far back as I can remember, and as far back as I remember you have had your eyes on Vanessa.” Sonny was leaning against one of the counters, a fan humming directly behind him as he attempted to stay cool. The summer heat was stifling, and in the lull of the mid morning, when no one was really around, it made it all the more unbearable.

Usnavi, across the shop, fanning himself with a magazine, responded with just a grunt of acknowledgement. His eyes flicked over to the window, said girl was rushing by, no doubt on an errand for Daniela while business was slow. “So?”

“So why haven’t you asked her out yet man? I see you watch her everyday, give her free coffee - I don’t think she’s had to pay for a cup in years!” Usnavi looked away from the window, flipping through the magazine.

“I don’t know, Sonny, I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

“Whatever man, but one day she’s gonna be gone and you’ll wish you had listened to Sonny. Well, I’m gonna go take a break, walk around for a bit.” Sonny started on his way towards the front of the store.

“You better not be going off just to hang with that punk.” Sonny sent back a devilish grin that was not reassuring.

“I’m just going out to appreciate some art.” And then he was out the door. Usnavi propped himself against one of the shelves, and looked at the ceiling without really seeing it.

Vanessa. She was everything. She was anything he could want. She was everything he didn’t deserve. Even the thought of asking her out on a date left him with a crippling feeling of fear and guilt. The fear he could understand, and guilt… it was something different.

The guilt was a feeling that was burrowed deep in his chest, and every time he looked at Vanessa, everytime she talked to him, smiled at him, their hands would brush… he would feel it. Like he had done something terrible, awful, despicable to her. He would inevitably break eye contact, jerk his hand away, stutter mid sentence. Seeing her, standing tall, standing confident, knowing herself so well… it made him smile, like it was something special for her to do, even though it really wasn’t. She was always like that.

One time, only once, he called her another name. He had been up late into the night helping Benny out with something or other, and he had been mentally exhausted. Tired, his mind in a fog, she walked in, asking for a coffee, and the word had trickled out of his mouth. He found several pairs of confused eyes on him, and after an apology and a joke that he himself needed a coffee, the incident blew over. Well, to everyone else. 

The only person he had ever confided the feelings to, well, at least part of them, was Benny. And Benny, for the most part, had seemed to understand. Benny, his best friend, and the man who he undoubtedly had trusted his entire life. Benny had been deep in thought, and Usnavi dropped the subject and never brought it back up. 

“Day dreaming?” Usnavi jolted out of his reverie to find Vanessa had at some point manifested by the counter.

“Just thinking, enjoying the peace and quiet while Sonny’s out.” 

“Well I could use some of your coffee.” He looked at her. Her smile, her hair, that light in her eyes… for a second, and smallest fraction of a second, the smell of wood and dust filled his senses, building seemed extraordinarily tall to him, and Vanessa… Vanessa was [           ], the name still lost to him, but he could tell she was also her.

And then the moment passed and the train of thought faded from existence, like when you snap out a dream and in a matter of seconds it dissolves into nothingness and no matter how hard you try you can’t retrieve it. 

“It’s on the house.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this lazy little drabble! Feel free to leave your own headcanons for this verse in the comments!


End file.
